If it's true that behind every good man there is a good woman, then behind every good sports team, there must be a good fan base.

Last year, you could have said 'No way, what about the Crusaders! They're a good team and get shit all fans' and I would have agreed with you. In fact, they probably still don't get as many fans as they should. But the Canterbury Rugby Union and Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder have identified this problem and are taking steps to resolve it. Lowering season ticket prices was the first step, and allowing fans onto the field was the second.

But other unions appear to be reluctant to adopt the 'bold' move. In this Stuff article, Westpac Stadium chief executive David Gray had this to say about pitch invasions;

"Once you start a culture of people going on to the pitch, you start to lose control of when that happens," he said.

"I just wonder if they've thought it through properly. You don't have to go far to see incidents of spectators attacking players. It happened in an ODI during the Australia-Pakistan series.

I say bullshit on both parts. First off, you have a PA system and security guards. If you broadcast over the PA 'xxx request you do not take to the field following this match' and combine that with the thuggish Red Badge staff, you'll be able to control it fine. Secondly, spectators already attack players. Except in New Zealand, it seems. Remember these two?

So I'd put forward that an act of violence against players can occur in any circumstance. Besides, does Cricket Australia allow fans to storm the pitch? If not, how is this even relevant to the current argument?

And then Gray suggested that protecting the turf was another reason working against us. Fair enough. Here's the quote as it was represented in that same article.

"Most other [stadiums] do probably 20 events. You only have to look at the three consecutive weekends of double-headers and another two coming up. We have to protect our grass.

"Most other stadiums after the rugby season don't have anything through to January, whereas we carry on right through, so if you lose a bit of grass the recovery is quite difficult."

Ok. Sure. Then explain how you let motorbikes romp around on the infield 2 weeks before the first Hurricanes match of the 2009 season? Or a giant stage and a tonne of people on the pitch a week before the Sevens... Where you let a whole bunch of dancers also on the pitch. Not to mention the Neil Diamond concert held in the middle of the Super 14 season, which placed punters on the field in seats and had a stage which took up the southern third of the stadium, and left the grass brown afterwards? Luckily you had two weeks to replace it with the reserve sod lumped out the back.

All we are asking for is a little bit of a concession to allow us to feel more emotionally invested in the team. The Caketin has already led to the severing of relationships with fans in Palmerston North and Napier, and with crowd numbers slowly but surely starting a trend of decline, surely anything helps. You'll allow 60,000 people [admittedly it is unclear how many of these were on the infield] to attend two concerts in a three day period, with a week turnaround before the Sevens, but you won't let at the very most a hundred people on the field after a game? Did you not see the awesome crowd at the end of the Lions v Otago Air NZ Cup match in 2008? Because unless we win the ruddy thing, that's probably the size you will expect.

If you feel as strongly about the issue as I do, I recommend you keep up with the Gen Ys and join the Facebook group.

New Sport Tuesday is a new idea I am trialling, where I will profile sports not necessarily well-known for Joe Blow in New Zealand, or often documented on The Dropkicks. If you have any sports you would like profiled, or know of any obscure sports, please email dropkicks@dropkicks.co.nz

To kick things off for week one, I have two doozies. One is safe for work [and for the squemish] while the second, not so much.

Firstly, Blind Baseball. As a child I was always interested in Blind Cricket after reading about it in one of those School Journals. [Are they still around?] Blind Baseball is much the same as Blind Cricket it seems.

Next, and this is where those of the weak stomach may want to turn around and go the other way, is Chaos Mad Max, a martial arts tournament. CMM operates under a bareknuckle philosophy, as it wishes to try and find disparities between different fighting styles which would not be evident with the use of gloves and pads. Basically, which fighting style fucks people up the most? The Japanese are crazy.

You may have seen Richard Boock's article in the Sunday Star Times yesterday. If you didn't, here's the online version.

Boock is a writer I don't agree with very often, and this latest article is no different. In trying to write this, I first turned to my ever-faithful Oxford dictionary which offered the following as one of 5 definitions of sport:

An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others.

And yet I still don't quite agree with this - I think that there is a far wider scope than the 'physical exertion' aspect.

What does Hot-Dog Eating have in common with the World Rally Championship? What does the WRC have in common with Golf? What does Golf have to do with Poker? The answer is that all involve a serious mental aspect. All of the above I would define as sport - because not all sport is about physical exertion, sometimes it's about putting the mental focus first, like in golf and poker. Sometimes it's almost entirely physical, like UFC [boxing not so much, even that has a mental aspect both within and without the ring] and BMX [go Sarah Walker woohoo!]. And other times it requires a balance of both.

And yet there are still more times when an athlete has to compete on a pre-determined scope of mental and physical actions, while being able to be flexible if events in front of them change without warning - this is the bulk of sport, NFL, rugby union, football, V8 Supercars, basketball, etc etc.

So in trying to argue Boock's case, I have found myself needing to come up with an improved, but simple, definition of sport. One which I propose, having devoted my lunch break to the task, as being:

An activity comprising of a significant amount of physical or mental exertion and in which an individual competes alongside others or alone against another opponent, ranging from a number of single competitiors to a team.

Something I discussed in the last podcast was the issue of sport analysis.
When a team is playing, how do the viewers come to their conclusions regarding a player's performance? Does it help you if you've played in their position and know what they should be doing? Can you make enough detail about a player's performance by the tv broadcast alone? Does the media opinion of these players impact on your own?

I'm interested in all answers! Post a comment below.

Much love.

Fan interaction is great. It's the time when players get to show their dedicated audience how much they love them and get the sponsor's message out there too. Well, maybe not if you're these players.

I propose adding another one, this time at number 0. 'Cause although players losing their rag is funny, the violence isn't so much. I'd rather see a cricketer getting lippy on the boundary [home of some of the best calls throughout history] or this:

Typical Radio Sport breakfast hour:

• 00 - 13 Sport, news, weather update.
• 13 - 15 Ads.
• 15 - 20 Interview.
• 20 - 24 Ads.
• 24 - 30 Compere comment.
• 30 - 40 Sport, news, weather update.
• 40 - 47 Interview.
• 47 - 53 Advertorial.
• 53 - 56 Compere comment/Interview.
• 56 - 60 Ads.

Read more...

PM is kinda like the Australian version of Radio New Zealand's Checkpoint programme. On last night's show this story was aired detailing a push by AFL and Cricket Australia to change the Copyright Act to protect pictures taken by media at their events.

I can see their point. They provide the spectacle. They [or the ground] take the photos. Then the media go off and sell their shots.

But hold on. Isn't that a good thing? The number one thing sport needs is exposure. If it doesn't get that it dies, because they need viewers to gain sponsors, to get revenue. So if an organisation is taking your photos and selling them on doesn't that just tell you they're doing a better job of exposing your sport than you are?

I'm not sure how the Australian Copyright Act is currently structured, but surely a resolution can be reached without it needing to be changed? Such as 'hey we'll start charging you guys a subscription fee' or 'how about for every sale you give us 12%'? Or in the easiest and most obvious solution, why not just say 'stuff it, you lot take your own shots'?

I've got no reason to write anymore. This trailer sort of answers every question you've ever had about the Star Wars universe in relation to sport. Which is also every question you've ever had about sport.

This questions include, but are not limited to; what is Chewbacca's favourite team? Which Star Wars character is most like Chad Ocho Cinco? Who would win a lacrosse match-to-the-death between the rebels and the empire?

Here's hoping funding is secured to make the movie.

And in finishing off the golf theme of this week, here's Danny Lee at the US Masters:

The NY Daily News has a list out of athletes who could make politicians. It's a laugh. Read on...

Now, who would be good for New Zealand?